


Red Queen

by enmayri



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Age Difference, Developing Relationship, Drug Addiction, Drug use/abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, Hold The Fuck Up Is That A Plot, How To Torture and Traumatize My Favourite Characters: A Case Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masochism, Sadism, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:41:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25177837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmayri/pseuds/enmayri
Summary: Alexander Nox begins developing a peculiar taste for his anathema.Just in time for the world to open up and swallow him whole.
Relationships: Caustic | Alexander Nox/Octane | Octavio Silva
Comments: 11
Kudos: 45





	1. The Abyss

“More coffee, sir?” 

“No, thank you, miss.” 

The barista dipped her head politely and shuffled away to tend to the other customers. The man checked his watch for the fourth time that evening. 1:38 AM. His throat bobbed with a dry swallow, and he turned to his coffee for support. Bitter and strong. Nasty stuff that made him wince, but at least gave his nerves some calm. 

Beyond the awning, rain cascaded down over the city like it was trying to drown it. He almost wished it would. Wash the night away and all of them with it. Save them from their own fool selves. 

No. There had to be something to say for duty. For responsibility, however slight. The man stood, a miserable and shriveled thing beneath a heavy trenchcoat and the brim of a cap, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The dark of the night seemed to follow him, weighing him down, stooping him lower into his collar. The rest of the city didn’t notice. Music and laughter echoed through the street, drifting out of open doors and up from club stairways, and even the puddles on the pavement shone bright with the neon lights above. 

A passing hovercraft sloshed water into his oxfords. It seemed as good a sign as any that he should just go home. A headache held an insistent pressure at his temples, and it was a wonder his pacemaker hadn’t sent an alert to his wife’s MRVN unit for how hard his heart was pounding. Every fiber of his being resisted his destination. He shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t have stuck his neck out. Go home, crawl into bed, and break it to Aveda that he’d fallen ill. The man he was supposed to meet never showed. There was traffic. Anything. 

In his pocket, his fingers brushed against the thin package. He trod on. 

Ahead, a low-hanging holosign wrote “Finder's Keepers” through the air in orange script. He took a right and descended into its stairwell, deeper and deeper until he felt the music pulsing through the soles of his shoes. The door at the bottom opened for him, and the noise poured out like water from a broken dam. Bright colours, music, laughter and conversation and screeching. Half-naked bodies packed the floor, all writhing around one another and covered in an array of paints that shone in the blacklight. He gave them a great berth and stepped into the next room, where he passed through a vibration shroud and suddenly everything grew quiet. 

Here, the lights were dim. A long stage lined the left, lit with a dark blue that made the costumes of the slow dancers atop them glow. One dancer, a naked woman with handprints on her breasts, waved an inviting finger at him. His face flushed hot, and he turned quickly away. Circular coves cored into the right wall, each draped with a dark vibration shroud that cloaked their inhabitants. He counted to the fourth, and then held his breath as he entered. 

Another man sat there in the dark. Completely silent, his brilliant green gaze unwavering from the stage. One hand held a glass of red wine, and the other an open book. He neither greeted nor acknowledged the man in the trench coat, who took a seat a respectable distance from him. Even then, it felt far too close. 

The doctor had not changed, not in the twenty-some years since he’d seen him last. He was an intimidating form, broad-shouldered and tall, but disconcertingly quiet. And his eyes... they were like a hawk’s, shrewd and insensate. As if all before him were no more than mice. Prey. 

Gods, why had he come? 

After a prolonged silence, he cleared his throat. 

“S-strange place to meet...” he said feebly. 

“Attention is not on us,” the doctor replied. 

“No, of course...” He glanced back at the dancers and blushed again. “I brought the package.” 

The doctor closed the book and placed it on the table. The Ghost in the Machine. Finally, those eyes met his, and an icy shiver worked through his bones. They watched, expectant. Breathless, he retrieved the cylinder from his pocket and placed it on the table, and the gaze released him from its grip. In return, the doctor pulled out a swollen envelope, but the man made no move for it. His fists balled in his lap, and he fought the urge to flee. To hell with the doctor. To hell with Aveda and her damnable company. To hell with the whole planet. But he’d gone out of his way to be here, to be sitting in front of the doctor again. Face to face, surely, he would listen. 

“They don’t want money this time,” he whispered. 

It gave the doctor pause, his wine glass raised halfway to his lips. Those eyes were on him again, cutting into his flesh better than any knife ever could. Now or never. He took a deep breath. 

“Do you remember me? Miskatonic University. 2711. Your thesis was on the Red Queen Phenomenon. The atmosphere on Gaea had changed rapidly in the previous four years, sending an evolutionary whiplash through the world’s vegetation... and then everything else in turn. It was an incredible thing to witness an argument that was so immediately applicable. I knew you would go far...” He turned to meet the doctor’s gaze, and found a startled recognition there. “I knew... you would go far.” 

“Professor Robyn Armstrong.” The hawkish eyes narrowed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“Leave the vial,” Armstrong said. He’d meant it to be firm, but found himself pleading instead. “Leave the vial. Take your money. Cut your ties with Calypso.” 

The doctor’s brow raised, but he said nothing, and he made no move to return the package. 

“Please, listen,” Armstrong urged. “Calypso—they're not good people. The more you deal with them, the more they will want. The more they will _demand_. They will use anything they can against you in order to get it.” 

“Rather than money, then, am I to assume they want product?” 

“They will want more and more, until it is more than you can give.” 

“An asinine statement. You’ve no idea how much I can give.” The doctor sipped his wine. “Or get in return, for that matter.” 

“N-no! Whatever you give them— _make_ for them— they will not use it for the betterment of the world. They will-” 

“ _B_ _etterment of the world_ ,” the doctor hissed. “A subjective ideology. Utopian drivel. You’ve no idea what it takes to better the world. To sustain its growth. Cruelty and kindness are both necessary elements, and rarely do they come from the same source. Each must grow ever kinder, ever _crueler_ , to ensure the cycle withstands. Complacency is to the detriment of all life, Professor Armstrong. The closing statement of my thesis. Do you remember?” Those eyes bore into him as his voice lowered. “Or are you growing decrepit?” 

“I-I’m old enough to know-” 

“You are old enough to have no _say_.” 

Armstrong flinched. “Neither of us are spring chickens.” 

“And eventually I, like you, will no longer be able to contribute. At that point, the world will not be mine to influence. Someone else, someone younger, will take up my run.” 

“Your... run?” 

“ _Now,_ _here_ _, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place._ ” 

Armstrong paled. Suddenly, he saw just how much of a fool he was. He’d begged to get there. Pleaded. Bent over backwards to appease Aveda, just to end up sitting in a nightclub in the dredges of Solace City, offering food to a crocodile that considered him to be no more than a meal himself. He’d stuck his hands where they didn’t belong. Where they weren’t wanted. And now one crocodile or the other was going to snap them off, because that’s what crocodiles do. 

Consume. 

“Now,” the doctor said, and took another sip of his wine. “What is it that Calypso wants?” 

Armstrong was silent for a long moment, staring at his hands. Then, trembling, he retrieved a fold of paper from the inner pocket of his coat and placed it on the table. He stood. 

“I was once where you are now, staring into the abyss of ever greater potential, and I wish I’d had someone to tell me to step away from the ledge. Once you go in... you can’t come back. You can’t undo the things you’ve done.” He turned to the doctor. “Come away from the edge, Alexander. Science for the sake of science is for the good of no one at all.” 

“Science is all there is, Professor. Nothing else matters.” 

Without another word, Armstrong left. When he finally made it home and crawled into bed alongside his wife, Alexander Nox was still sitting in the cove, reading and drinking wine. The alarm he’d felt at seeing the professor had long since faded. Sentimental old fool. Get married and pop out a couple of children who pop out some children of their own and suddenly everything invoked emotion. Everything had to have meaning. The concept of balance was completely ignored in favour of the greater good. There was no care taken that for something to so wildly tilt one way, in the direction of their so-called _good_ , an alteration would inevitably come to tip the scales clean opposite. And then what? 

No one ever thought about that part. 

Alexander snapped the book shut with the fold of paper as its bookmark. He placed the little packaged vial in the pocket of his suit pants and stood, leaving the wine behind. On the other side of the partition, the noise of the club drowned out his irritation. He ordered a scotch at the bar and settled into the corner, watching the painted clubbers. A few wiggled their way over, insisting he join, but lost all confidence when he ignored them. One signed in his direction. It made a smile twitch at the corner of his lips, and he shook his head in reply.

It would be best to start making his way to the upper echelons of the city. His bed awaited him, and tomorrow promised interesting developments with the contents of the vial. Not to mention the paper. Calypso no longer wanted his money. A trade proposal, most likely. He would continue to receive necessary components for his work, and they would gain... 

_Come away from the edge, Alexander._

He sniffed dismissively and downed the rest of his drink. When he ordered another, he had a twin sent to the woman who had signed at him. There was no greater distraction and mental reset than a warm body as company. He just had to pick the right one. 

A thin, lanky form dropped next to him at the bar and rambled off a list of drinks. His skin was painted with neon green in a mixture of occult markings and war paint, and when he turned, Alexander found one stripe even ran down the middle of his bottom lip. Two small rings hung from his right nostril. His eyes were lidded, and their pupils filled the entirety of each iris.

“ _Hola_ ,” the man purred. 

Alexander didn’t reply. Didn’t have to. The drugged-up clubber giggled like a hyena and turned to the surplus of alcohol he’d ordered. He gave a sideways grin and raked his eyes up and down Alexander’s body. 

“Big, strong guy like you, eh? Wanna help me carry my drinks?” 

“Not in the slightest.” 

The painted lip stuck out in a pout and he sank in his seat, looking like the world’s most pitiful cult sacrifice. Then he immediately perked back up and gathered the glasses—six pinned between arms and bare chest, and four more in varying stages of balanced between his fingertips. He gave Alexander a triumphant look. 

“If you manage to get to your table without spilling, I’ll clap for you,” Alexander said flatly. 

“If I make it without spilling, the next round’s on you,” the man shot back. 

Alexander narrowed his eyes. A visible shiver ran through the skinny body, and that grin split to reveal teeth. Daring. Defiant. _Inviting_. Alexander couldn’t help the quick inhale he took, and he emptied his glass and raised it pointedly to the smaller man. 

“If you lose, you pay for _my_ drink.” 

“A challenge?” The man laughed, a warm and invasive sound. "You've got yourself a deal, amigo!"

Alexander stood, and the man watched him rise with a growing smile that held as it seemed to sum up the several heads of height difference between them. He giggled again and twisted to lead the way. One of the glasses immediately went flying. They both stared, awestruck, as the floor took a decisive spray of Angel’s Tit. That pretty painted face looked up at him with wide eyes, and then gave a weak smile. 

“Uhh, double or nothing?” 

A deep laugh rumbled from his chest, and Alexander swiped a hand down his face and through his beard to muffle it. He sighed the rest out, composure intact, and cocked a brow. 

“Double or nothing means double the drinks. _And_ double the stakes.” 

The man looked down at the rest of the glasses in his arms, and then between the bar and the table where three women and another man waited impatiently, crowing a variety of teasing insults in their direction. He turned back for the second round. Alexander helped pile them, one by one, in those painted arms. The very last one he held up to the man’s face for him to pinch between his cheek and shoulder. Then he stepped back to view his handiwork, and smiled darkly. 

“You paying for two drinks doesn’t quite feel like doubling the stakes, does it?” 

“Oh-ho, you’re having some fun with this, aren’t you?” 

“I’m entertained, yes.” 

“Lay it on me then, amigo,” the man said defiantly. “I’m not backing down. Double the stakes.” 

“I think I’ll come up with something interesting for each separate glass you spill.” 

There was a pause as the man took the words in, and a slow grin spread over his face. He straightened, abruptly dropping the drink from his shoulder, and met Alexander’s gaze. 

“Oops.” 

Alexander watched and kept count. Three had fallen by the halfway mark, not counting the first. He nearly missed the fourth, too distracted by the roll of the hips in front of him, and another fell when he made it to the table, only to be caught by one of the women. Alexander counted that anyway. Perhaps he would even introduce a penalty for cheating. 

Obediently, the lithe figure returned even as his friends called after him. Tavi, he heard. Not a native name. Probably some silver-spooned off-world student just visiting until the next semester. 

How convenient. 

When he turned and left through the partition, Tavi followed. The music flattened into a slow symphony, and then became silence when they slipped through the shroud of the cove. He refilled his wine glass and quickly halved it, enjoying the pleasant buzz crawling between his ears. Tavi padded across the cushions until he was sprawled out in front of Alexander like a cat. Or like a buffet. He giggled as if he could read the doctor’s mind, and held his hand out. Alexander deposited the wine glass there and filled it back up for him.

In immaculate form seemingly unfair for one so thoroughly under the influence, Tavi put the glass to his lips and drank as he wormed his way to his feet. Face to face with the aid of the cushions, Alexander couldn’t take his eyes off the painted stripe on that plush lip. He took the clubber by the chin and brushed his thumb across it. It didn’t smear. 

Tavi grinned. All teeth and piercings. Defiant, like he knew exactly what Alexander was trying to do. As if to prove his point, a tongue flicked out across the lip, brushing against the pad of Alexander’s thumb and leaving wetness behind. But the moment he saw those two little silver balls resting snug on the tongue's surface, the paint was forgotten. He leaned down to get a taste. Alcohol and salt, with a lingering hint of the black cherry wine as their tongues met. Tavi moaned high in his throat, and his hands began searching all across Alexander’s chest. Both were caught in a single grip. 

He leaned away from the little fiend and pulled the packaged vial from his pocket and placed it carefully on the table. Were it to be cracked, there would a great deal of cleaning up to do. That would ruin the fun. 

“You’re tall.” 

Alexander resisted the impulse to mock the statement, and instead mashed his lips back against the mouth to shut it up. Soft. Like velvet. He fingered his way across Tavi’s jaw, prickly with fine little hairs, and took him by the throat. Tavi’s breath caught, and a thrilled giggle escaped him. 

“You can do better than that, _amado_ ,” he rasped. 

One could wonder what drove someone to test a stranger’s limits. Trust? Arrogance? Terribly unwise, either way. Alexander tightened his grip. The throat convulsed under his palm as Tavi gasped, back arching and dark lashes fluttering. He could feel the blood roaring beneath his fingertips. At his mercy. But after a few moments, he let go, and Tavi took a great shuddering breath. Alexander still felt the heartbeat. In his own ears this time, drumming arousal through his body. The way the little deviant looked at him, mouth hanging open, lips shining wet, leaning forward for more. 

Alexander found himself smiling.

“Take your clothes off.” 

There was a split second in which uncertainty flickered across that lidded gaze. He looked over Alexander’s shoulder toward the stage, where naked bodies danced and watched the shrouded coves as if they could see their contents. To the people inside, they may as well. The tint was only a one-way visual. Still, Tavi obeyed. The strip tease wasn't nearly as pretty as that of the dancers'. Tavi fell over twice and used both times as an excuse to clutch at the doctor's chest for support, giggling all the while. In truth, Alexander didn't quite mind. Tavi was warm and his bare skin tasted sweet, and his moans even sweeter. The glowing paint ended where the edge of his shorts had begun and it was too dark to see much further, but there was a wild satisfaction in the noticeable flush of his cheeks as he sat bare beneath Alexander.

"Look at you," he whispered. His hand raised to ghost along the inside of Tavi's thigh, sending shivers rippling across the skin. "Exposing yourself for all to see."

Tavi's eyes focused past him, to the stage, and his breath came short. Imagining, so clearly, that they _could_ see him. The sensual dancers watching him spread himself out, witnessing the twitch of his cock as it weeped on his belly. Alexander brushed a fingertip down its length, and the man choked on a moan.

" _Mierda_ \- god."

"Do you know how many drinks you spilled?"

He laughed breathlessly. "Enough?"

Alexander chuckled and took a hold of Tavi's hair. Soft waves of shadow between his fingers. He led and Tavi followed, until his nose was pressing against the button of Alexander's pants. He grinned and began to pull at it, but his hands were quickly captured again.

"First glass," Alexander whispered. "You only get to use your mouth."

Somehow that fiendish grin managed to grow. Tavi held eye contact as he leaned in and mouthed at the clothed groin, and gasped when Alexander tightened his grip on his hair and anchored him back to his task. Two bites and a tug and the pants were loose, and Alexander was kind enough to pull them down and out of the way. Tavi nuzzled the rigid underside of his cock in thanks, sending a shock of electrical pleasure straight up Alexander's spine. That pierced tongue flicked out, running up his length, and lips closed around the head.

Alexander massaged through Tavi's hair encouragingly, pressing him further down after each return for air. Halfway and Tavi choked and pulled back, only to find Alexander holding him there.

"Oh, I know you can do better than that."

The challenge had an immediate effect. Tavi's eyes opened, catching Alexander with a prideful look as he sank back down. Deeper and deeper until he could feel the back of the man's throat and the tongue lathing at the base of his cock. A rough groan escaped him, and Tavi moaned in turn and picked up the pace. He sucked and bobbed, trying to take just as much of Alexander each time. It was like he was striving for the reaction. For the few and far between sounds Alexander would sigh out, followed close by Tavi's own stuttering rhythm and muffled whimpers. He wanted the attention. He wanted to know he was having an effect.

Then Tavi's hand reached down and took himself in a tight grip. Alexander pulled the man off with an entertaining little _pop._ Strands of saliva and precum broke and ran down Tavi's chin, and he panted hard as he stared up with a questioning look.

"Second glass. You're not allowed to touch yourself."

A pathetic moan came from Tavi's lips. His cock jumped in disappointment when he let go, and his hand returned to its position against the small of his back, wrist over wrist. Resistant, but obedient. Alexander smiled and reached out to pet the man's cheek.

"Good boy."

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Tavi breathed. 

Alexander thumbed the painted lip, smiling as it finally smudged. Tavi's mouth opened, pierced tongue licking at his fingertips, and let out a moan as Alexander hooked him by the jaw and pulled their mouths together. He could taste the alcohol on each exhale. 

"Turn around."

Tavi did so enthusiastically, and Alexander quickly began fingering him open. He'd half a mind to turn the lithe body around and bend him over the table. Let him watch the stage as he was fucked. Let him feel the eyes of the strippers upon him. But there was a common coin between them that Alexander had to acknowledge. He, too, strove for the reaction. So when he finally pierced Tavi's pulsing heat, it was with great satisfaction to hear the breathy groans he could tear out of him. Each thrust earned a whimper, a moan, a curse in that pretty foreign tongue. Tavi held onto the back of the sofa like his life depended on it, and his insides seemed to hold onto Alexander in the same way. Agonizingly tight. Clenching down on each stroke. So good, and Alexander leaned in to tell him as much. 

Tavi dropped his head with a whine, and Alexander buried his face in the sweet exposed dip of neck and shoulder and ran his tongue along the skin. He felt the smaller man gasp against Alexander's forearm, and then bury his own teeth in. With a full-body shudder, Tavi came. 

Alexander slowed, but didn't stop. He took a handful of Tavi's slim thigh, athletic and smooth, and spread his legs further. His right seemed to be a prosthetic, hard and stiff as the calf bumped against Alexander's knee. And as if he knew exactly what the man's intentions were, Tavi's hips wiggled enticingly. 

"C'mon," Tavi whispered, voice hoarse but light with his cheery disposition. "I know you can do better than that."

Half in awe and half in spite, Alexander completely stilled inside the man. Again, Tavi wiggled, and added a groan alongside it to show his anticipation.

Alexander took a fistful of Tavi's hair and wrenched his head back, earning a ragged moan. He pulled out to the very tip and returned slow into the aching warmth, and that time they groaned in unison. He kept a slow, even pace, one hand dipped beneath their bodies to grip Tavi's growing erection and the other still tightly wound in those soft brown locks. As the hardness in his hand grew, his vigor followed. His hips snapped faster, speared deeper, and dragged greater sounds from the depths of Tavi's throat. All too soon he felt his own climax rising, coiling in the pit of his groin like white-hot embers.

He stroked Tavi with each thrust, and his lips returned to bite marks and hickeys to knead a renewed freshness in them. His hand left the soft hair and wrapped around Tavi's throat to hear the delicious struggle for air and feel the rising pulse. 

"Ah! Oh, mierda," Tavi moaned. " _P-please_."

Alexander gave Tavi one last bite as he came. An outpouring of those hot embers, the skyrocketing high of endorphins smothering his senses. An abyss opening before him, filled to the brim with the only heaven to ever exist— the one of pleasure and perfection. The epitome of everything the human body could offer. 

And then the high faded. The abyss was seen for its true self— no more than chemicals and want. A momentary distraction that did its job in clearing Alexander's mind. He detached himself from the abyss as he rose from Tavi's body.

Hot towels allowed him to clean himself up and make himself presentable, save for the red hickey and bite mark that stood bright against the pale meat of his forearm. He didn't bother rolling his sleeve down to hide it. 

"There are hot towels on the stand," he said idly. 

Tavi just hummed, content to sit in the mess they'd made like the little nymph he was. Alexander left him there.

He hailed a cab and told the system the coordinates, and the drive was beautifully silent. The heavy rain had receded to a sprinkle, and a complimentary umbrella was given to him when he reached his destination. He went to his apartment and locked the door behind him, placed the vial in his lab, the book on his bedside table, and then fell into bed. He was out before he hit the pillow.

Early morning light peeked through the windows, creeping in like a thief to stab wakefulness in unsuspecting victims. This was not what woke Alexander.

It was an incessant beeping that broke through his veil of rest. He peeked an eye open. A clear glass card sat propped up against the humidifier, blinking yellow. His Apex Legend card. It was calling him to the ring. He scrubbed his eyes and sat up. No, not to the ring. Red for the ring. Yellow for... 

He coughed long and hard into a fist, and sighed. Yellow for nuisance. Any legend could call a meeting if they so pleased. The times they did were thankfully few and far between. The last had been for the arrival of Loba. Arguably necessary. 

However, the one before had been Mirage needing to show off his having taught a hologram how to juggle. 

Alexander snatched the card off the table and tapped its screen. If Mirage’s face had popped up, he would have thrown it across the room and gone back to bed. Unfortunately, however, it was Commissioner Blisk. The worst outcome. Mandatory attendance. 

Growling the entire time, he washed and dressed and left, but not before allowing himself a moment to appreciate the violent red mark on his arm. It would bloom into a vibrant bruise in a few days’ time. 

An official Apex valet picked him up in an air-suspended limousine with a gift basket inside, which was piled high with fancy shower gels and lotions. There was a card in it signed by Jacob Young, apologizing for the inconvenience and hoping that the gift basket would provide some semblance of appeasement. Alexander rolled the window down and tossed the entire basket out into the street. 

A tower loomed ahead. A massive pylon-like structure that extended seventy-five floors into the sky with a collection of smaller buildings clustered around its base. One such building— an octagonal gallery lined by battlements from which the Apex Predator flag hung— was exclusive to the Legends themselves. It was there that their meetings were held, hosted by their oh-so-lovely Commissioner Blisk and varying in topic from Revenant terrifying the common folk to Wraith wandering a bit too far from the Syndicate’s realm of control. 

Bangalore was the first other Legend he saw. She stood military straight between the entry colonnades, watching and waiting. He passed her without greeting. 

Inside, the ceilings were vaulted high and lined with grand— and archaically pedantic— decorum. Corbels with the sneering skulls of prowlers carved into them. Curtains as red as blood, embellished with gold trim. Trinkets. Memorials. An entire hall dedicated to the history of the Apex Games and the Syndicate that birthed them. 

Or at least the history they wanted you to know. 

Revenant stood by the door to the meeting room, staring upward, taking it all in. His gleaming eyes turned to Alexander as he approached, and the pale face tilted. 

“Seems silly, doesn’t it?” 

Alexander paused beside him and turned to follow the simulacrum’s gaze. A massive tapestry hung between two arched windows and showed the original members of the Apex Predators in their fantastic, armoured glory. They looked like knights of a round table. 

“The obscene extravagance?” 

“The façade,” Revenant answered. 

“Hello, friends!” Pathfinder greeted as he jogged up to them. His arm raised, hand waiting, screen lit with expectant joy. 

Revenant stared at the MRVN unit, and then at his own hand, sharp and menacing. And then he turned and went into the meeting room. Alexander followed, leaving the sad metal puppy standing in the hall. 

The inner sanctum was significantly more modern, replacing the inlaid columns and cream tones with grey metal and security reinforcements. Even on highly guarded private property, the Syndicate still took great measures to ensure the safety of their stock. Aside from a long conference table, a complimentary coffee setup, and several awaiting hologram screens, the room was empty. Except, of course, for the aforementioned _stock_. 

Gibraltar leaned back in a chair with his arms crossed before his great chest, conversing with the combat medic, who had her feet propped up on the table and appeared to be petting the DOC drone in her lap. Mirage sat in the centre of the table and tossed a baseball back and forth to his mimic on the other side. Bloodhound seemed to be asleep. 

Alexander made a cup of coffee and found himself followed by Revenant, who watched the process carefully. He was just about to ask if the simulacrum remembered the taste when Loba strode in, heels clacking loudly on the marble, and spat a curse in Revenant’s direction. Coffee, and perhaps some distant memory of his humanity, both forgotten, he stalked after her. 

“Good morning, Dr. Caustic!” Natalie greeted as she came in. 

“Good morning, Ms. Paquette. Coffee?” 

“Oh, please!” 

He made her a cup of decaffeinated vanilla. Four packets of liquid cream. Two sugars. She took the cup with a vibrant smile and thanked him, and Alexander was left with warmth in his chest as she wandered off to find a seat. He placed himself between Gibraltar and Wraith and waited. Fifteen minutes turned into half an hour, and he was kicking himself for not having brought a book with him. He should have expected their host to be late to his own show. When before had the man ever been punctual? 

Without a word, Wraith angled her book in his direction. Alexander sipped his coffee and, equally silent, read. To Say Nothing of the Dog. What an absurd choice. 

By the time Commissioner Blisk entered the room, Alexander and Wraith were over halfway through the book and starting on their third cup of coffee. His greeting echoed against the vaulted ceilings, commanding their attention, only to be interrupted by Lifeline’s raised hand. 

“O ain’t showed up yet,” she said. 

Blisk checked his wristwatch, the door, and then Lifeline, before shrugging and heading over to get himself a drink. 

“Doesn’t mean we can’t at least know why we’re here,” Bangalore argued. “We’ve already been waiting long enough.” 

“I’d rather not have to go over it twice,” Blisk said. 

“Great. How long’s he gonna take, Che?” 

“Might not come at all,” Mirage cut in, taking his eyes off the hologram only to be smacked in the side of the head with the ball. He rubbed his cheek and glared at it. “He uh, was out at a party or something.” 

Bangalore sent Lifeline a tired look, and the medic frowned. She waved a dismissive hand, and Blisk returned to center stage. The moment he said ‘paychecks’, Alexander and Wraith simultaneously returned to reading. Bangalore, on the other hand, got louder. The announcement became a debate, and everyone started taking sides. Even with a significant number of the Legends— Revenant, Caustic, Wraith, Bloodhound, and Loba— completely indifferent, Blisk was outnumbered. He argued semantics. The ring needed maintenance. Quick, simplified travel between King’s Canyon and World’s Edge needed to be cemented and secure. Quarterlies were coming up, and new contenders needed organizing. Viewership was a defining factor, and thus, would always be the priority. It all cost money. But, he promised, the more put into the games, the more viewership they attained, the more sponsors, and the more money that would be allotted to the prize pool. 

It was the same indifferent Legends that knew... Blisk should be more worried about them. They, who had no qualms about how much they were paid because their interests involved something greater. Something much more important. Something- 

“Hey, amigos! Sorry I’m late!” 

Alexander rolled his eyes and sipped his coffee, and then gasped it directly into his lungs. Octane strode in half-naked, covered in smeared green paint, carrying a balloon dog and a stick of cotton candy. The jaws of every hinged mouth in the room dropped to the floor. 

“Did you guys know there’s a festival in the city?” he said, grinning. “They have a circus! I saw a real live bear! An _earth_ bear!” 

“Silva... What in the hell is all over ya?” 

“Some club had a paint party last night.” He rubbed his eyes and blinked blearily at his smeared arms. “Not gonna lie... I’m still a little tipsy.” 

Gibraltar gave Alexander’s back several hard pats as he coughed himself red. Panting and light-headed, he dropped his face in his hands and ignored Lifeline and Octane chittering at one another over nearly shocking him to death. When he finally sat up, the two had fallen into a pouting silence. Octane caught his sideways stare and waved an apology at him, before suddenly returning the blank stare tenfold. Alexander put a forefinger to his temple and tried to use the hand as a shield to hide behind. He pretended to listen to Blisk’s babbling, which attempted to form a new manipulative angle in the wealthier Legends somehow having a responsibility to the structure of the games. That made Loba speak up. Worst fight Blisk could have picked. He peeked between his fingers at Octane and found the man staring at the table in awe, seemingly going through the same existential crisis. 

Then, to Alexander’s horror, a broad grin spread across the adrenaline junkie’s face. 


	2. A Monster, A Prince, and A Hunter

Octane stuck his tongue out at him and wiggled his brows. Alexander’s fist tightened around his mug. Smug little imbecile. Did he not understand the gravity of the situation? Did he think himself at an advantage? 

He could be. The dark burn of defeat snaked itself in the back of Alexander’s mind. In a situation similar to this, with Legends taking sides, Caustic would be in the same position as Blisk. Outnumbered. Lifeline was Octane’s best friend. Gibraltar adored him. Even Ms. Paquette thoroughly enjoyed the runner’s presence. Much of the rest would support him by proxy. 

But on the opposite end, it made them targets. 

Synergistic teams were often hunted early. Wraith and Mirage complimented one another well, providing near-immaculate escapes and rescues to be a constant thorn in the side. Revenant and Bloodhound ran on the same wavelength. Their ability to aggress and ambush were the most dangerous of any Legend. As for Octane and Caustic... there had never really been a chance to test it. In theory, the ability to both hunker down and escape at a moment’s notice was potent. In action, Octane never sat still enough to do so and Caustic was resistant to the constant and often unnecessary movement. 

They were anathema to one another. 

Blisk waved his hand in dismissal. He left the way he’d come, and the Legends the same. Alexander lingered. Octane did not. He did, however, peer back at the doctor with a broad grin, and his fingers teased underneath the collar of his jacket. They circled the spot where Alexander had bit him. 

Alexander’s lip twitched, and he swung his arm back, mug in hand. Octane let out a shrill squeal and ducked down in front of Lifeline, who tripped over him and caused a domino effect of Legends toppling over one another. 

Satisfied, Alexander left the mug on the table, stepped over the mess, and left. 

Among the buildings beneath the Syndicate’s tower were several dormitories where the Legends could stay if they so pleased. Most did not so please. Pathfinder was one of the few who did, but he often spent so much of his time at Mirage’s bar that he’d may as well be the trickster’s roommate. Revenant had an entire bunker to himself, more of an attempt at containment than to provide living quarters, but both were ineffective. The simulacrum had his own ways in and out of the compound. What he did at that point, no one knew. 

The rest lived in apartments or townhomes or somewhere or other. Alexander neither kept track nor cared. His own residence was in a wealthy complex that didn’t ask questions and didn’t pry, so long as you paid. That was all he’d ever wanted. 

It was amusing to imagine what the other Legends would think of his apartment. Six rooms, of which two were master bedrooms, and three bathrooms between an unused personal sauna, a master bathroom, and a guest bathroom. Bangalore would pop a vein and bleed out on sight. Lifeline would probably accuse him of something nefarious. 

She would be right, of course, but the trouble wasn’t worth the entertainment. And besides, Alexander had work to do. 

He held the vial up to the light of his lab and rolled the sludge from side to side. Not quite to the level of liquidity he’d requested, but it would do. Hard to complain when such a rare substance has traveled fifteen planets to come into his hands. 

_Ricinus_ _precatorius_ _._ A mutant of the rosid clade borne through human error. In terraforming a planet, certain plants would be introduced to encourage oxygenation, and to test soil fertility. A lazy and ignorant tactic that could just as easily have been done with a simple swab, but Alexander expected nothing less from the IMC. Their mistake bred a toxin so potent that a single of its peas could turn an established city into a wasteland. 

He rolled his chair over to a tablet sitting propped on a bookshelf and tapped its screen. Classical music flowed through the room, the beginning of a lengthy playlist of piano and brass. Already the surplus of plants flowering under his hydroponic lights perked up. Alexander smiled and retrieved his headphones from his desk, and then started an industrial metal playlist for himself that would run for six hours precisely. 

Four separate swabs were taken of the vial and run through four separate dishes of agar. He marked them clearly and placed them in incubation. Then began the long process of further liquefying the toxin. With such a limited amount to work with, each experiment had to be carefully measured. There was so much to do. Substrates must be separated. Ribosomes must be examined. Compatibility with other toxins must be tested. And finally, its effect in each form must be observed. 

Eventually, they would see fruition in the games. Until then, however, Alexander favoured a variety of specimens. _Xixuthrus_ _cataracta_ wielded the greatest exoskeleton of any known beetle, and had the added advantage of being amphibious. An important variable. It would be tested both in and out of the water, with a third test that would expose it to the toxin out of the water and then allow it, if it so chose, to escape into its little pond. In terms of flesh, Alexander fell back to the classic lab rat. This was favourable due to the incredible extreme of homozygosity they’d been bred to. A research rat on Solace was no genetically different than a research rat on Gaea, which meant any previous experimentation done between the two components would provide the same results, and therefore would save him time and supply. 

Unfortunately, tests involving _Ricinus_ _precatorius_ were few and far between, and often commissioned by private companies that cared not for communal intelligence. Alexander leaned back in his chair and glared at the results on the computer screen. Only three studies had been done, and each sat hidden behind government authority. He brushed his fingers across his mustache thoughtfully. Crypto could probably retrieve them. But he wouldn’t. Not for Caustic. 

But it wasn’t time to play that card just yet. 

He dismissed the studies. He’d have to do it from scratch, and that was quite fine with him. There was limited trust to be put in other scientists, especially those who allowed their informative work to be confined. Monopolized was one thing. Complete secrecy was another. 

He glanced over his shoulder, eyes narrowed as he remembered. Calypso. The paper. Where had he put the damn thing? 

A vile ringing pierced through the percussion, and Alexander tore the headphones out with a snarl. He glared at his phone and found one of the operational managers of the games waiting. He contemplated not answering, but his curiosity got the best of him. 

“What is it?” 

There was a pause before he heard a throat clear. “H-hello, Dr. Caustic. I apologize for the inconvenience, but we’ve had a sudden... absence. Would you be interested in filling in?” 

“Absence?” 

“A game was scheduled for today, but we’re unable to locate Ms. Andrade for it.” 

“I fail to see how this is my problem.” 

“No, no, not a problem, Dr. Caustic! It’s just that the team she was assigned to will have a forfeiture, and it... disorganizes the games, you see.” 

“If Ms. Andrade is so important to this organization, I recommend you double down on finding her.” 

“It’s not Ms. Andrade, per se... We are simply in need of a Legend to partake.” 

Alexander pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Who are the other two?” 

“Revenant and Bloodhound.” 

He snorted. The gamemasters should have seen that one coming. He was just about to say as much when he realized something. Three legends? On a single team no less? He peered at the calendar hanging beside the bookshelf, marked all over with notes that confirmed his suspicions. These were qualifier matches, not official bouts. He tapped his pen against a notepad thoughtfully. 

“Special occasion?” he wondered. 

He could practically hear the manager squirm. 

“Teams are entirely randomized," was the slow reply. 

“I’m sure,” Alexander said. “Do you care to know the exact statistical likelihood for three Legends ending up on a single team in a match of ninety?” 

“Well, the Law of Probability-” 

“The percentage alone for certified champions to be included among a qualifier roster is two hundred-sixty to one.” 

“It’s... a test.” 

“Quite the finality for a test. Is there someone you don’t want to win?” Alexander chuckled harshly. “What’s the phrase Commissioner Blisk always says with such high zest? Ah, yes. _They kill you, they’re better. You kill them, you’re better_.” 

The manager seemed to be rethinking his choice of aid, but was apparently smart enough to know that backing out was no longer an option. He let out a heavy sigh. 

“Teams are randomized, Dr. Caustic. Even our algorithm may provide us these small exceptions and we must honor them, no matter how... problematic. An absence requires replacement from an equal tier. You will be compensated.” 

“Yes,” Alexander answered. “I will.” 

Two days later, World’s Edge stretched out below. On one side, the simulacrum in his beastly, gaunt, skull-faced form. On the other, Bloodhound, comfortable in their normal garb. Caustic stood between, adjusting his crowned mask and taking in the view. The wind chilled him through his coat, but the heat rising up from the shattered earth felt like a living breath. The very planet itself heaving a great sigh. 

Caustic turned and studied the rest of the platforms. Two dropships sailed side by side, split evenly, and still the teams crowded one another, pushing to get to the edge and arguing on where to drop. Others were silent, watching the trio of Legends on their private platform with wide eyes. That is where they want to be. The dais they strive for, fight for, bleed and kill for. 

And in their eyes, he could see their realization that they would never reach it. 

Revenant pointed to the Sorting Factory. Caustic and Bloodhound gave their grunt of agreement. And then the monster, the crowned prince, and the hunter all jumped. 

Six teams followed. 

Caustic couldn’t knock them for the tactic, but he despised the lack of forethought. Especially when two teams split off, having lost their nerve, and a single member from three different teams drifted away from their packs. Fools. 

Revenant landed them first, and they all split. A wave of Bloodhound’s scan flowed through the building a few moments later, revealing each and every person that chased them. Caustic dropped his canisters around corners, and Revenant smothered their pursuers with a morbid silence. The battle that followed was a brutal mess, and ended with the trio grouping in the observation bubble, each looted to their own satisfaction before the first ring had even closed. 

“Of all the teams to swarm,” Bloodhound murmured, looking out over the mess of blood and bodies. 

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” Revenant said simply. 

From there on the game was mechanical and, ultimately, joyless. They found a duo trying to catch a golden cargo-bot, and from their corpses they found two vault keys. Caustic exchanged an exasperated look with Bloodhound, and Revenant just laughed. By the time the third ring closed in, each of them carried a piece of gold and only four teams remained. Caustic wondered whether the specific contender they’d been indirectly tasked with eliminating was even still around. 

Now they were chasing care packages. Revenant had already opened three and then torn them apart when there was no Peacekeeper to be found. Bloodhound followed to appease him, but Caustic was debating on finding a place to sit. Let them run around on their own. 

At the top of a hill, Revenant spotted another one. Unopened and waiting, practically singing with the promise of the favoured shotgun. He slid down towards it with the hunter on his heels. Caustic huffed and sat on a rock. The ring was closing, the care package was outside, and Caustic quite simply couldn’t be assed. 

A sniper shot cracked through the air. Kraber. Caustic turned and realized several things all at once. Bloodhound was pinned down behind a boulder. Revenant laid in the grass, his chest cratered in and steaming. The care package, lined not with red, butblue. 

In a quick peek, Bloodhound pinged the enemy. Caustic found them through his sights. Lifeline. _Another_ legend? He opened fire, giving Bloodhound time to rush out and drag Revenant to safety. The next moment, he found himself assaulted by a mass of grenades. One after the other after the other, forcing Caustic to abandon high ground. There was no cover. The closest structure was the Trainyard, but Revenant and Bloodhound were stuck in the opposite direction. The ring moved ever closer. 

Caustic dropped himself behind a rock and put his sights on the rest of his team. Revenant was up again, healing, while Bloodhound worked to whittle the enemy’s health down in short bursts. Caustic couldn’t see from where he’d been pushed to. Was the entire enemy team there? Why didn’t they push? Or were they trying to get another pick with the Kraber? But he hadn’t heard any more of the sniper since the first shot. It didn’t make sense. 

“What the hell are they doing?” Caustic growled. 

“Rotating.” 

He twisted around to the voice and found himself staring up the barrel of the Kraber. 

“I know you can do better than that, amigo,” Octane said. 

The world went black. 

In his youth, Alexander had been a sickly child. He didn’t really grow until he was fifteen, when he shot two feet upward in the span of a month. It made everything significantly worse. His already compromised immune system suddenly had more body to account for than it had energy, and he was introduced to a strict diet of proteins and vitamins in order to encourage his organs to catch up. The food was disgusting. Fish and meat and beans, day after day after day. On top of his tendency to fixate, it became nearly impossible to follow the food plan. Sometimes, to eat at all. It culminated in a syncope disorder that led to the first and only time he’d ever seen his mother cry. He felt her tears slipping through the cracks in his visage and burning as they went. 

He hated that feeling far more than anything else. 

After that, he ate obediently and loyally, if not a bit grumpy for it. The issues resolved as he grew stronger, and he’d not had an incident since he was twenty. 

Suspended death, he found, was much like syncope. The darkness is sudden and takes you by surprise, despite how prepared you think you are. It’s a whirlwind of nothingness. No dreams because it’s not sleep. No rest because your body is fighting even if you don’t realize it. And the return is no more than a jumbled mess of shapes and colours all mashed together and swirling like a kaleidoscope, until finally your brain comes to terms with the fact that you’re still alive and you shoot up, awake and startled, with not a single clue as to what has just happened. 

A nurse came to his bedside and offered a cup and a small baggie. Alexander narrowed his eyes, but accepted them. Peanut butter crackers and orange juice. Another grating similarity. 

He rubbed the exhaustion from his eyes and winced. His face hurt. The little mirror on the medical tray revealed a lovely purple welt on his right temple. 

What a waste. He would have had most of his experiments completed by then, and all he’d had to do was say no. But he was greedy for the advantage, for the unknown variable of exactly how far one would go to ensure their secrets remained as such. An easy angle to manipulate. Fulfilling the unofficial mission would have granted him even greater favour, but it seemed he had failed that. Inconvenient, but ultimately miniscule. 

Unless Revenant and Bloodhound had managed to win without him. 

Alexander stood, wobbled slightly, and stretched. Beyond the privacy curtain was a long medical hall, mostly empty. A few nurses sat at the station on one end, but didn’t really seem to be paying attention to much other than the television. He tested the theory by pacing a short distance, pretending to reassure himself of his balance. No one glanced at him. He immediately dropped the feeble pretend and began sweeping the curtains back one by one, searching. Empty bed, empty bed, empty bed, an employee with a stomach ache, empty bed, empty bed... 

Octane. The little Legend was unconscious, breathing serene and peaceful. His hat, mask, and goggles lay on the bedside table. Not quite the person he was looking for, but... Alexander stepped in and pulled the curtain closed behind him. 

Even after the misfortune of coupling himself with the idiot, Alexander had to admit he’d have done it again in a heartbeat. Between the high cheekbones and angular jaw, Octavio Silva was a sight to behold. Elegant. Graceful. 

The spitting image of his father. 

No wonder he hid his face. It changed everything about him. Probably gave him no small amount of irritation either. He could pierce it, scar it, paint it, dye his wavy quiff as poison-green as he wanted, but he’d still look in the mirror and see good ol’ dad looking back. How tragic. 

Alexander smiled. He ran the back of a finger across Octane’s lower lip, and then traced the jawline right down to the curve of his throat. A solid pulse bounced against the skin. Incredible how much more tolerable he was when he didn’t speak or move. 

Just as the thought passed through his mind, Octane’s breath hitched. A quiet groan parted those lips, and his honey eyes opened. He blinked blearily, first at the ceiling and then at the man standing over him, at which point his brain appeared to skip right over wakefulness and dive headfirst into fight or flight. He jerked upwards, stiff as a board, only to find the hand resting against his throat holding him still. 

“Ah-” Octane said with a nervous grin. “L-long time no see.” 

“Are you having fun with this?” Alexander wondered. “All that jesting joy you displayed at the meeting. Gone now, hm?” He dipped his head to Octane’s ear and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I think you need a reminder that this goes both ways, _Tavi_.” 

He squeezed just enough to deny blood. Octane gasped and clutched at the pressure. His fingers crawled in between the flush of his throat and Alexander’s palm, but resisted no further. 

“What’cha gonna do?” Octane asked, voice breathy and heavy with anticipation. “Fuck me in the medical bay?” 

“I’m debating on it.” But even as Alexander said so, he withdrew his hand and took a step back from the little Legend. “This is not the fun game you think it is,” he growled. “We both have much to lose from our mistake.” 

A hurt look crossed Octane's face, but was gone the very next second. In its place grew a mischievous grin. The cheer of a brat who's always gotten what he wanted and saw this situation as no different. His metal foot snaked its way up the inside of Alexander's leg. Light and teasing. 

Alexander snatched it by the ankle before it climbed the last few centimeters to his crotch, and gave Octane a dangerous look. The man giggled in reply. 

“I just shot you in the face,” he said. His neck rolled to the side, revealing skin like coffee cream that seemed to promise it tasted the same. His voice dropped to an alluring purr. “Not going to get me back for it?” 

Alexander cocked a brow. That was a great point. He contemplated the fact as he pulled Octane by his leg, suspending him half off the bed, and clamped his hand down on the overactive mouth. 

“Glass three,” he hissed. “Make no noise.” 

Octane instantly disobeyed with a muffled moan. Alexander ignored it, not yet sure of the punishment for disobeying, and quickly stripped Octane of his shorts and boxers. An entertaining sort of déjà vu, he found. Octane— _Tavi_ — bare beneath him and quivering under his weighted gaze. Dripping. Wanton and wiggling, too far away to reach out and free Alexander's cock from the confines of his pants, but clever enough to try and entice Alexander to do it himself. 

It worked, but Alexander wouldn’t count that as a win just yet. He stepped away from the little Legend to search the bedside drawer for vaseline. Octane whined, but fell silent when Alexander shot him a scathing glare. His cock twitched visibly in effect. Half of Alexander's brain short circuited at the sight, and the other half was already preparing a filing cabinet dedicated to the nefarious things it would spawn. 

He returned to his place between Octane's slim legs and ran his hands across the thighs. They trembled under his fingertips, but Alexander could still feel the firm musculature of them. Lean with strength. Weak under his touch. 

“Excited, are we?” Alexander whispered. 

Octane opened his mouth to reply, but then remembered and snapped his jaw back shut. Alexander smiled and pet his cheek. 

“Good boy.” 

“Oh, fu-“ 

Alexander muffled the word with his hand and stilled for a moment, listening. The television at the end of the hall echoed slightly, along with the chattering conversation of the nurses, but the bay was otherwise silent. Footsteps would make a distinct noise. He would hear them coming. 

Still listening, but for a different output this time, he pressed two slick fingers into Octane. There was a gasp, and then a groan when Alexander took up a quick pace to stretch the man open. Hands clawed at his shoulders, taking fistfuls of his shirt, and one of the lax metal legs rose to wrap around Alexander’s hips and try to pull him forward. 

In retaliation, Alexander ghosted his fingertips across a warm bud and turned Octane into a writhing mess. The moans against his palm forced him to press down harder, both against the mouth and the prostate, until Octane got the message and bit down on his noise. 

Alexander was tempted to tell him how good he was being, but there was a dangerous twitch in the cock leaking out on Octane's stomach. Any more of these obvious ticks and the poor little Legend would go overboard before Alexander got his fill. 

Though that may be overestimating how long he himself would last. 

There was no way around it; Alexander fancied the man. No one in their right mind wouldn’t. In that was a sort of intoxicating victory, to know that it was Alexander and Alexander exclusively who touched Octavio Silva like this. Who heard his moans. Who felt his delicious heat and tasted the sweat on his skin. And it was only Alexander who was privy to such information as to what curled Octane's guts just the right way. The balance of threat and praise. The sharp pull of his hair and the soft massaging of his scalp after. Hot and cold. Allowance and denial. 

Ever kinder, ever crueler. 

Alexander pressed the head of his cock into Octane, and watched with a smile as the man's hands flew up to cover his own mouth. The vaseline allowed an easy slide, almost too good, and he had to still for a breath when he sheathed himself entirely. Octane's head fell back with a raspy sigh, and one hand reached out to cup Alexander's thigh, as if to ensure the man wouldn’t pull out before he was ready. 

Immediately, Alexander felt the impulse to slap the hand away and move at his own speed. He knew better than Octane what the two of them needed, and he would teach the man just that. It was such a second nature reaction that Alexander was already in the motion to do so before he even felt the indignation of it. 

But he didn’t remove the hand. He allowed it to still him. He allowed Octavio to muster his bearings and he waited for the fingers against his thigh to flex, pulling, giving their eager sanction. Only then did Alexander move. 

He didn’t know why. But Octavio helped him forget about it. 

The thrusts were hard and fast, but more rolling than the snapping of hips. Alexander was at least coherent enough to remember the necessity of their quiet. Octane, less so. His mouth hung open and huffed through each drag against his insides, and every once in a while a low moan would rumble up from his throat before one of them slapped a hand over the sound. 

Clenching his teeth on a groan of his own, Alexander watched the sweet pucker tighten around him with each push and pull. He angled Octane's legs higher, felt the muscles tighten around his cock. Agonizingly tight. Agonizingly slick. 

“Ah- oh, god,” Octane whispered. 

Alexander tutted. “No noise.” 

He bent Octane in half and pierced him hard, and clamped his hand over the loud moan that came out. He fucked the Legend relentlessly, watching those honey eyes roll into the back of his head. Fingernails raked down his biceps. Tight thighs tensed against his chest. The weeping dick between them pulsed with cum. 

Alexander groaned at the sight and dropped his head to focus on his last few thrusts before he emptied himself in Octane. He only barely managed to hold off crushing the smaller man as his body threatened to give out. He felt exhausted and weary, and despite the warm figure still pressed against his chest, Alexander felt a growing cold overtake him. He untangled and straightened, and cleaned himself up with a rag. He tossed one to Octane, but the man was still dazing with the drifting high of his orgasm and ignored it completely. 

This was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid. 

“How-“ Octane cleared the croak from his throat. “How many more glasses did I drop?” 

Alexander glared at the man, but didn’t answer. There was a muffled argument echoing from down the hall. He stabbed a threatening finger in Octane’s direction as he stepped out of the privacy curtain. 

“We will talk later.” 

The voices led Alexander back towards the bed he’d awoke in. Directly beside it, in fact, and by the time he reached the curtain, he’d heard enough. He entered without invitation, drawing the shocked face of the nurse. 

“What are you-” 

“Get out,” he said. 

The nurse looked between him and the person sitting on the bed, who glared on in silence. 

“B-but I had to look at the wound!” she said. “I _still_ haven’t been able to yet!” 

Alexander stepped forward suddenly, quickly, and the woman flinched back like he was coming to strangle the life out of her. She shrank beneath him, staring up with wide eyes as he towered. 

“I will not repeat myself.” 

The nurse scurried out. 

Alexander rolled his sleeves and washed his hands in the bedside sink. As he dried them, Bloodhound dropped the sheets they had pulled up around their shoulders to cover themselves. Some vague semblance of relaxation returned to their scarred face. 

“One patient is no different than the next to them,” Alexander growled. “They forget the base concepts of individualism and privacy.” 

A hum was the only reply. 

Alexander finished setting up the medical tray before turning to them. Their left arm raised slowly, revealing a violent mass of bruising centred around a bloody welt on their ribcage. Had Alexander any less than a golden helmet, his face would have looked much the same. He poked and prodded Bloodhound’s skin as carefully as he could, feeling for broken ribs. Then he cleaned the wound and bandaged it, pausing only to equip a nebulizer and hand it to Bloodhound when they started having difficulty breathing. 

There are both victories and losses to be shared among the Legends, but much of the kinship is limited to those moments. The great glory. The miserable failure. The common coin of triumph and defeat that all of humankind share. But beyond the ring, connection is few and far between. Some Legends kindle friendships with personality and mutual interests. Others are stuck together exclusively by situation and environment. A spare few make no attempts to mingle, but in that was a strange understanding. Caustic didn’t particularly enjoy Bloodhound as a dropship neighbour, but he didn’t dislike them either. He wouldn’t take them out for coffee, and he wouldn’t ask them how their day went, and Bloodhound held similar taste. But it was in this isolation that they saw one another, and knew one another. 

An acknowledgement across the water between those treading the same river. 

“Will the simulacrum be waiting to skin us when we get back to Solace?” 

“I am not sure,” Bloodhound replied through the hum of the nebulizer. “I did not see him fall. A second team approached as you went down. We did what we could, but it wasn’t enough. I was sent back to the obelisk and fell there.” 

“I’m sure whoever did it was all too pleased to have taken us out. But it seems they had a surplus of Legends to choose from this game, didn’t they?” 

“Five Legends for the slátra. Why?” 

“Law of Probability, I was told.” 

“This match was not on my list,” they said carefully. “The rosters were released a fortnight ago, and I was apologized to. They had... _forgotten_ to inform me.” 

They shared a knowing look. Alexander placed the last piece of medical tape and stood. He unpackaged a tube and pulled the oxygen tank closer to set it up, and handed Bloodhound the mask when it was ready. They took it slowly, as if skeptical, and Alexander felt a flush of irritation in his chest. 

Then they gave a small smile, and said, “Thank you.” 

The anger melted like snowflakes on skin, and he was left with a strange warmth in his limbs. Before he realized it, he had retrieved Bloodhound’s clothes from the end table and placed the pile beside them on the bed. Then he turned and left. 

The dropships were quite large, halved evenly by the medical bay. One side held the technology offices of those controlling the cameras and drones that observed each game, along with the waiting area for general contenders. The other side belonged entirely to the Legends. Their separate coves were tucked against the walls and a lounge sat in the middle before several large screens, which showed the game proceeding below in a multitude of languages. A home away from home, as it were. 

Alexander stood at the end of the couch, curious, but not committed enough to sit down and watch. Two teams remained. Revenant was among them. 

The game hadn’t been in Bloodhound’s original schedule. Suffice to say that their teammates shared the inconvenience, which made Loba’s avoidance all the more notable. Teams are randomized, the operational manager had said. The algorithm gave them an incongruity. He blinked in clarity as he saw Lifeline and her last teammate sprinting towards the ring.

Bloodhound, Revenant, and Loba weren’t the incongruity. They were added to combat it.

Humming, Alexander turned to his cot and laid down. It was useful information, especially as the outcome didn’t matter. The contender could win it all and become the next Legend, or he could die and be lost to the innumerable pile of those who had fallen short. Alexander didn’t care either way. It didn’t affect him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Google: That strange warmth might just be the feeling of friendship :)
> 
> Caustic, staring at the computer screen: Cool. How do I uninstall it


	3. Complacency

In retrospect, Alexander entirely supported Blisk’s need to build a definitive jump between Solace and Talos. It was only a two day trip, but between Bloodhound’s bird crowing in all manners of protest at its cage and Octane insisting on watching three very loud streams while he played a very loud game, it felt like a week before they made it back to the Syndicate’s tower in Solace City. 

The descent into the station was a slow process exacerbated by incompetence and ill-preparedness, and Alexander had been packed and ready since the morning and was damn near willing to jump the thirty-floor drop left to escape. By the time the ground team had cleared their landing zone, he’d been standing on the exit platform for an hour estimating the exact height at which his legs would snap. 

A voice over the loudspeaker, likely after spotting Alexander and realizing how quickly they would lose their job should any tiny disbalance send him careening off the edge, announced that the ship would be safely docked within ten minutes. Fifteen minutes later, Alexander stepped forward and dropped the last few feet onto the metal grating of the exit ramp, earning some stressed looks from the workers. Lifeline complained loudly behind him, and then even louder when Bloodhound and Octane followed suit. 

Beyond the docking area sat a medical bay that worked much like a conveyor belt. Each Legend stepped through one slot and into the next, passed on from temperature and infrared screenings to wound care to— if necessary— decontamination. It was a process Alexander understood and respected, and so he cooperated. He was cleared, but Bloodhound was not, and Alexander found himself pausing at the end of the line, watching as the medical personnel gestured to a private room on the side. A common practice to ensure their wounds were properly healing and to assess the kind of medication they would need, if any. Bloodhound complied without issue, and with only a short passing glance in Alexander’s direction. These staff were significantly more professional than the mobile units on the dropship, and Bloodhound was a strong and independent figure. They needed no one to watch over them. Even then, they seemed pleased that someone had their back. They disappeared into the room, and Alexander looked down at his open hand. Warm. 

"Psst," came a whisper behind him. 

Alexander turned with the force of a hurricane, relieved to have something to turn that unknown emotion into familiar irritation. Octane grinned up at him. 

“You said you wanted to talk, yeah? I’m free n-AGK-” 

With a quick look around to ensure no one was looking, he grabbed Octane by the vest straps and dragged him through the closest door on his left. An empty office. He snapped the blinds closed and turned back to the annoyance. 

“ _I_ will decide when we talk,” Alexander hissed. “Not you.” 

“Hey, hey, you’re not still mad about me hiding nessie?” 

Alexander snatched the little Legend up by his vest until they were nose to nose, and a spark of thrilled fear shot across Octane’s face. 

“Thank you for reminding me.” 

“Ah... n-no problemo, amigo.” 

So close, he could smell the man. Alexander wished he could blame the surge of arousal on Pavlov, but the body in his grip didn’t smell of sweat or alcohol or anything that would remind him of how it felt to lay into his heat. Octavio smelled like warm honey and steel, and gave Alexander the strange sense that he was looking up to a canopy with the sun shining a comforting dapple across his skin. An untouchable comfort lingered there. The kind he could curl up and sleep under. 

Then he dropped Octane and straightened, much to the obvious discontent of them both. Alexander dragged a hand down his face. 

“ _I_ will contact _you_ ,” he said firmly. “Not the other way around.” 

Octane nodded absentmindedly, as if his brain were rebooting. “Uhh, how?” 

Alexander was silent, grinding his teeth. He closed his eyes in miserable acceptance when Octane held his phone out, and they ended up trading numbers with specific and clear restrictions on contact. He left the office with a cloud of incoherent regrets hanging over him. 

There were a lot of things Alexander could complain about in reference to how the Syndicate ran. One of the things he appreciated— as few and far between as they were— was their nonexistent tolerance of the media. Reporters and journalists and their cameras were held back by a perimeter of guards, each of which looked ready to gut the first person that stepped within arm’s reach. It was a great deterrent. 

Didn’t stop them from screaming out their requests and taking pictures over the guards’ heads, though. 

Alexander ducked into an awaiting cab and sent himself home. 

For obvious reasons, Alexander Nox had no maid for upkeep while he was away. The first hour of returning home was spent cleaning, and the second was spent incinerating the overgrown bacterial cultures that were well on their way to spawning the world’s next supervillain. The third and fourth were shared between the cultivation of four new agar dishes out of his already dwindling supply of _Ricinus_ _precatorius_ , and the useless angry pacing induced by the knowledge that he was going to have to contact Calypso for more. 

The delightful sonnet of Professor Armstrong’s warnings rolled through his mind on repeat, and Alexander grit his teeth against the verses. He would have to stretch this supply out. To approach them for more already before even completing the trade they’d- 

He froze. The goddamn paper. 

He retrieved it from his bedside and replaced it with an actual bookmark, and then returned to his lab, where he unfolded it with growing confusion. Each revealed segment wrung another sigh from him, and when it was all laid out, he wanted to go to bed instead of deal with it. 

It... _appeared_ to be a breakdown of chemical components, though not in a structure he’d ever seen before. The fragmented schematic was all sorts of wrong, and Alexander flipped it from side to side in an attempt to recognize it. A new chemical bond? A new molecular geometry entirely? Or just chicken scratch. Some imbecilic scientist thinking he’s discovered a new element only to find out he’s contaminated the crystallography slide with a pinprick of spilled coffee. 

Alexander dropped the paper to the table and then his forehead as well, and let out a long sigh. He took his phone out and went through the three-factor identification needed in order to pull up his account on an innocent horticulture website, where he ordered a blue barrel cactus from a company that promoted live delivery. For the address, he input one belonging to a botanist shop on the south end of Solace City. For the name, he put WASP. 

The eternal summers of Solace were harsh, but it was cool that time of year. About as close to fall weather as the planet would ever get. Alexander put his hair up in a bun and stuck it through a cap to hide his face, and put on black sweatpants and a plain teal shirt. He walked several blocks from his apartment before ordering a cab, which took him to a coffee shop a mile from his true destination. He ordered a coffee, sat and read the newspaper until his phone beeped at him, and then walked the rest of the way. 

Shihouin Gardens was the name of the botany shop, and it doubled as a scenic walkthrough greenhouse. Small rocky waterfalls led to ponds where rare algae thrived, and a rope net allowed vines to cascade overhead. Birds chirped a symphony, and the buzz of carefully selected insects vibrated the air. 

Henrik Ghislain was waiting beside the waterfall, sitting on a bench with a cup of birdseed in his hands. He was a tower of a man at six foot seven, all bones and skin. His face was deceitfully friendly and young, but his eyes were accurately aged, tired and drooping with the weight of insomnia. A sneer crossed his face as Alexander approached, shattering the kindly visage. 

“I told Calypso you were the one of the most brilliant chemists in the Outlands.” 

“I am,” Alexander retorted, and tossed the fold of paper on the man’s lap. “Whoever made _that_ certainly isn’t.” 

“Hah! I told them that, too, you know,” Henrik said, suddenly cheerful. “A week ago, I told them. You can’t give him only a snippet and expect him to do what you want. He needs to see it all to understand how it’s supposed to function.” 

“What exactly is it?” 

“A chemistry problem.” Henrik dug into the satchel at his side and retrieved a manila envelope. “It’s missing something and none of them can figure out what.” 

“And they wanted this instead of payment?” 

“Aye. Speaking of! How did the date with old Robyn Armstrong go?” 

Alexander glared at the man. “Well enough. What use does Calypso have with a man so morally gilded?” 

“Armstrong’s been under Calypso’s tooth for a while now. The classic ‘payment that will never quite be paid’ scenario. Not that he’s much use. They generally use him for transport.” 

“Oh? They just so happened to assign my old professor to bring me a package?” 

Henrik let his head back and laughed, a sound as fake as the rest of him, and caught Alexander in his gaze. They were sharp and clear, as venomous as a snake, seemingly misplaced in those tired sockets. A show, just like the baggy and drab clothes hanging from his scrawny frame that hid the metal strength underneath. 

Alexander flexed his hand, reassuring himself of the toxic weight hidden in his prosthetic fingers. 

“No,” Henrik answered. “He was specifically chosen. Doesn’t know it himself, though. Armstrong used up every last favour he had to get to the place they wanted him anyway. That’s how it works, Alex.” 

Oh, he was well aware how corporations worked. Alexander looked down at the envelope in his hands. They used Armstrong because they knew the connection. To make a point. To show him where the bleeding heart got you. 

They didn’t need to worry about that. 

“I need more product.” 

Henrik’s brows raised. “Already? What, did you spill it?” When his only reply was silence, the man shrugged and continued, “I’ll make an effort. It’s hard moving toxins through the Outlands, you know. Pirates and mercenaries and loot goblins, all wanting and never satisfied with what they’ve got.” 

“You would know better than most such a mentality.” 

“ _We_ ,” Henrik snarled, suddenly jerking to a stand. In a single step, he’d crossed the distance to Alexander. “ _We_ know better than most, don’t we?” 

Henrik slithered around him like a constrictor, sizing him up for the meal, but then his chin settled placidly on Alexander’s shoulder and he looked down at the envelope alongside him. Alexander wanted to brush the man off, pull away, distance himself from the man and his impotent words, but he didn’t get the chance as Henrik smiled again. Green eyes met green, each as vibrant as the morning dew grass, and as Henrik pulled away the fatigued persona fell over his face like a well-worn veil. 

“Good to see you again, Alex.” 

For nearly an hour, Alexander didn’t move. He stood on the pavilion with the envelope in his hands, staring at nothing, listening to the waterfall and the birdsong and the chirp of the rarest crickets on the planet. A tickle reached up from his lungs and scratched at the back of his throat, and Alexander coughed into a fist. It shore him from the roots he’d unconsciously dug there, and finally, he turned to leave. 

Six years prior, Alexander called a cab no different than the one he stepped into now, and had gone to a small exposition on a spit of land at the very southern edge of the continent. It was on private property and was a private gathering, masked to the public as a high-end plant exhibit. In truth, it was but a tiny speciation of a massive black market enterprise. 

Alexander had adorned a suit for the event but kept a visible mantle of his echelon pinned to his breast pocket—the gleaming metal insignia of an Apex Legend. His contacts introduced him to a menagerie of faces. Some important. Some infantile. Of the most noteworthy was Henrik Ghislain, a biomechanical engineer and expert smuggler whose sleepless nature was a staple introductory quip. He’d been far more flesh and blood then, and perhaps not so unhinged. Henrik had introduced him first to the bar, and then to the shrimp table, and then, finally, to Calypso. 

Even more so than the exposition itself, Calypso was fastidious and secretive, handpicking their own clientele to which they offered sensitive substances usually heavily restricted and inaccessible, to say nothing of the price. What few clients Alexander recognized were all independent benefactors—entrepreneurs and influencers and geniuses— who kept their exclusivity a deeply guarded secret. At the time, Alexander had been thrilled with the prospect of secure anonymity. Now, he understood. 

Robyn Armstrong had been correct. 

They were not just clients. They were a network. A vast expanse of people of different rank and reach, chosen entirely for what they could produce for Calypso when called upon. Alexander couldn’t help but respect the ambition. But he felt a vitriolic animosity for his position in this scheme. 

As he laid the newly acquired paperwork out in his lab, his irritation grew. Everything Calypso had done for him, all their catering to his needs and bending over backwards for his appeasement, it had all been for this. For a foreseen moment in which they would need a chemist of precision and perfection, and trusted that he needed them just as much as they needed him. And he did. It angered him to know so, and it angered him to have not seen this coming. Had Calypso placed their cards on the table a mere three years earlier, Alexander would have had a way out through Henrik. The man would have smuggled product between planets for the rest of his life in Alexander’s name. 

Until the ambush. The theft of Alexander’s possessions in more ways than one. Henrik’s body, cut to red ribbons. His arm torn straight from its socket. Legs snapped like brittle twigs. And who had offered the man a healing bed? A place to rest and build himself anew? Calypso had been all too happy to accommodate. Whatever they’d done to him, or allowed him to do to himself... 

It didn’t matter. Alexander hadn’t cared then and he didn’t care now. Henrik had become no more than a chained dog, loyal to the ignorant masters that failed to acknowledge how close it was to rabid. 

The greater problem laid in front of him. The complete schematics of the problem Calypso wanted Alexander to solve. He hadn’t a clue as to what the hell it was. 

His eyes burned, and he rubbed them hard. A weariness gnawed at his bones, scarred up and sore and tense from so many years of secrecy. There wasn’t a single moment of it that Alexander regretted. Not a single thing he would take back. His fingerprints had been melted away. His pinkie and ring fingers were likely no more than ash, cremated along with Not-Alexander back on Gaea. Sacrifice after sacrifice, so much running and hiding and cleaning up, and now the cycle was starting anew. 

Calypso would just be another stepping stone. He would conquer them as he had all other hurdles in his path. 

A little beep sounded on the desk. He peeked one eye open and glared at the phone, already knowing exactly who it was. Why had he given that little bastard his number? He would sooner have used a bird to deliver messages than allow such immediate contact between them. With the irritation fresh in his mind he snatched his phone up to block the number. It was not Octane. 

**_We are celebrating at Elliot’s bar! Please come have fun with us, Dr. Caustic_ **😀 

Alexander closed his eyes for such a long time that the lab’s automatic lights turned off. He grunted, and they snapped on again. With a heavy sigh, he stood. 

Mirage’s bar, despite its placement near the southern night streets, was a central attraction in the city. Fans ventured in to flirt with the showman and try to catch sight of any other mingling Legends. Pictures, autographs, entertainment— it was a wonder Blisk hadn’t tried to capitalize on it yet. 

Bangalore stood outside the back door. A cigarette burned bright where it was stuck between her lips, and when she exhaled a cloud of smoke it did nothing to hide the hardness of her eyes. Sharp shards of brown agate, full of tension. She trusted Caustic just about as far as she could throw him. 

Actually, she probably could toss him a good distance. 

“Here to babysit?” the woman rasped. 

“I was invited.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“Count yourself blessed that I deigned an answer at all.” 

“Yeah, right,” she said. “I could think of a few people who need babysitting, and Wattson isn’t one of them.” 

Alexander paused in the doorway and fixed a cold stare on the woman. She glared right back, like she was looking for a fight, but she pulled back when he leaned in. 

“Not you though, right, _Anita_?” he hissed. “The IMC lapdog, ready to be pat on the head and told you’re a good soldier?” 

A flicker of uncertainty flashed across Bangalore’s face, gone so fast he could have imagined it, and a sneer took its place. 

“Whatever you say, _Nox_.” 

Alexander gave the woman a derisive smile and went inside. 

Most of the other Legends were already present, chattering cheerfully with one another. Loba was behind the bar, showing Gibraltar and Lifeline how to make some elaborate cocktail. Mirage and Octane were at the gaming lounge dueling one another in some guitar rhythm video game. Natalie and Pathfinder were cheering them on. Wraith was trying to get them to make mistakes. Crypto was looking at his phone. 

“Yoo-hooo! Doctor Grumpy,” Loba called, rattling the alcohol canister as she did so. “Come get a drink.” 

“Poison?” Alexander asked as he took a seat at the bar. 

“Not yet.” 

“Shame. Coffee, then.” 

Gibraltar let out a thundering laugh and clapped Alexander on the shoulder. Lifeline, on the other hand, was sending him a dangerous look not unlike the one Bangalore had gifted him. Alexander ignored them both and sipped at the mug Loba passed to him. It burned with the weight of alcohol, and he shot her a glare. 

Over at the gaming lounge, Natalie hooted and hollered, encouraging both Mirage and Octane as well as the woman between them, who tugged at drawstrings of hoodies and sweatpants and jostled their guitar straps in mischievous glee. Bangalore hadn’t been entirely wrong when she’d suspected Alexander of babysitting. Someone had to look out for Ms. Paquette. Someone without ulterior motives like those he suspected of her so-called friends. 

Crypto was secretive. Dangerous. Running from one thing and chasing something else at the same time. Alexander couldn’t allow him to drag Natalie into such a mess. 

Mirage was a fool, but a harmless one. The man held up a veil of self-confidence and charisma and flirted with anything that walked on two legs, but it was easy to see where his priorities lay: in the bar, and with his dear mother. 

Wraith, he trusted somewhat. Despite the voices, she was intelligent and observant, and she wouldn’t put Natalie in danger. She’d sooner put herself under fire than allow that. But Alexander saw the way her cheeks flushed under Natalie’s attention, and the way she smiled at Natalie when the engineer wasn’t looking. 

Love would ruin her potential just as quickly as trouble. 

His eyes drew across the group and landed on Octane. There, they stayed. Longer than necessary, and certainly longer than he knew he should have, soaking up all the information. He wore a sleeveless cloth hoodie and a denim vest covered in patches that Alexander couldn’t make out over the distance, and simple black biking shorts that appeared to have been just slightly too long and thus were unevenly cut and frayed at the edges. A mess, all in all. Quite entertaining. 

When he finally tore his eyes away, Loba was watching him, looking the very likeness of a smug cat with a belly full of canary. 

“Like what you see?” 

Alexander scoffed. 

“Dr. Caustic!” Natalie called, springing over with a bounce in her step. “I’m so glad you came!” 

“We’re still missing some people, though,” Mirage mumbled behind her. “Where’s Hound?” 

“And Rev!” Pathfinder said. 

“Why would you say that-” Mirage snatched a glance over his shoulder like he expected the simulacrum to be standing right there. Unconvinced, he drew his voice up. “I- I mean... I love that guy, yeah!” 

“Don’t worry about it, brudda. He ain’t comin’.” 

"Oh thank god.” 

“I don’t understand how you can treat that thing like...” Loba’s face twisted into a sneer. “Like a _person_.” 

“Everyone is deserving of love,” Gibraltar said. His voice was firm, but warm. The sort that denied any invitation to argument while still being incredibly comforting, as if the statement were not just about Revenant, but Loba as well. 

“Well damn. I hope he’s not like, depressed or something,” Mirage mumbled. 

“He do say some pretty bad shit,” Lifeline said. 

“That doesn’t mean anything. Caustic says awful stuff all the time!” 

Mirage looked at him expectantly. Alexander hummed thoughtfully. 

“People who breed cockroaches frequently develop allergies to them,” he said. “This often prevents them from drinking pre-ground coffee due to the degree of cockroaches ground up with the beans.” 

The entire room stared at him, and then at their half-empty mugs sitting on the counter, and then back at Alexander. He smiled and sipped idly at his coffee. 

Bangalore came inside just in time to see Mirage gagging over a rubbish bin while Loba poured cups of coffee down the sink with a thousand-yard stare. Octane, meanwhile, was sitting cross-legged on the bar with the bag of coffee in his lap in search of cockroach pieces to terrorize Mirage with. She looked between them all with narrowed eyes. 

“What the hell happened?” 

“Let’s not- Let's just forget it,” Mirage croaked, standing. “We still have a party!” 

“Yeah, on that,” Lifeline said. “What are we celebratin’ again?” 

“What do you mean? You guys won!” 

Lifeline frowned. “A _qualifier_.” 

“We’re celebrating Elliot’s need for a party, beautiful,” Loba elaborated. 

“Hey, it can be... both,” Mirage mumbled, and then brightened. “We have cake! And other food! And alcohol! Man, I can’t even remember my last party.” 

“I can,” Octane said, wiggling his brows at Alexander. “Vividly.” 

Alexander grit his teeth and tried to elaborate through his glare the various ways in which he was going to murder the man. 

As the festivities picked up, he retreated to a booth with the remainder of the coffee pot and pulled a notepad from his back pocket. He reconstructed the chemistry problem Calypso had given him. With each layer now visible, it was far easier to discern what it was, which made it all the more confusing that Calypso had tried to keep it from him. 

Each piece fit the foundation of a high-energy neutralizing agent. Bare bones and bland, but visually iconic. Such agents were created to use up negative space in order to contain a source that constantly emanated discharge. For nuclear products, it contained radiation. For unstable products, it prevented reactivity. But Calypso’s agent demanded a specific necessity—the blank piece of the puzzle that Alexander Nox was supposed to solve and quickly had: a distilled gravitational environment. It was a pointless attribute for many reasons, and each of them drew Alexander to the same conclusion: Calypso had discovered something. 

Alexander stared at the structure. At the vague components, each of which were markers for an energy source. Not electrical, or else they would need a battery rather than a neutralizing agent. Not nuclear, because nuclear containment agents were common and easy to get. Not pressure, because a distilled gravitational field facilitated containment rather than balance. This source couldn’t touch anything. 

The only thing that made sense was thermal energy, but it didn’t match up. The lengths Calypso had gone to ensure secrecy, not to mention a secure container... would they really do such a thing for a meager fire? Certainly, a substance like that would melt through the first thing it touched, but then it would rapidly cool into a useless blob. Temperature dissipates. It wasn’t a constant source. 

Calypso was more naïve than Alexander had thought. They were using his single favour on something that they would find out much too late how little use it was. Truly, all the better. 

Alexander relaxed against the booth, stifling the overwhelming urge to laugh. What an incredible waste of time. 

By the time Alexander reached his conclusion, the party had dwindled into a game of pictionary for the remaining Legends. Everyone but Octane, Mirage, Wraith, Loba, and Bangalore were asleep, but Mirage was slowly nodding off during his guessing of what Alexander could only assume, by the picture Octane had drawn on the whiteboard, was a pair of unfortunate freckled breasts. Only half-listening as he maneuvered Natalie onto his back to take her home, the timer ran out and Octane explained that it was _obviously_ the phrase: the bee’s knees. 

They had to pull over twice so that Natalie could puke, but the rest of the ride to the Syndicate’s tower was quiet. There, Alexander had the cab park outside an engineer grid lab. The Paquette Lab. The building Natalie had grown up in, and her father had passed away in. 

It was an elaborate building of layers, all centered around a massive electrical generator. Alexander took the flight of stairs upwards, resting in regular intervals, until they made it to the rooftop where Natalie’s room lay. 

It had once been a greenhouse terrace, but when Luca died and Natalie had struggled to return home, quick intervention from the Legends had turned it into a studio with sound-proofed walls, a brilliant tint-compatible skylight, a kitchenette, and a connected bathroom. Books and plushies and blueprints now filled it to the brim. Cluttered, but with a distinct organization. 

Alexander sat Natalie down outside the bathroom, where she wobbled and leaned against the door. He handed her a change of pajamas, imprinted with little nessie patterns, and ushered her inside. Then he tidied, just slightly and only in the kitchen, taking care to remember her particularities. When she came out of the bathroom, he placed a glass of water in her hands and led her to bed. She snuggled down in the sheets with a murmur of thanks, and was immediately out. He placed the water on the bedside table, turned the lights off, locked the doors, and left. 

A strange feeling permeated Alexander’s skin on the ride home. A lightness, calm and warm, that made him content and sleepy and slow. Fulfillment. Like he’d just checked something important off his bucket list. 

_Complacency_ , a dark voice whispered from the back of his mind. 

Alexander closed his eyes tight and pushed the thought back down. Truly his own worst enemy. A constant debate of asceticism and practicality against comfort and... complacency. 

Complacency is to the detriment of all life. Correct, yet again, from concept to example. Had there ever been a question? No, of course not. It was simply the way the world worked. Alexander was above it. He had more self-control. More self- _awareness._ He was greater than that asinine mental desire to want, and be wanted. 

So why did it make misery creep up his throat like it was going to suffocate him? 

Alexander stepped out of the cab and dragged himself to his apartment. His phone pinged in his pocket, but even pulling it out to look felt like too much of an effort. Stripping down to his boxers nearly drained him completely, and when he finally dropped himself in bed, he couldn’t pull the covers over his body. He laid and stared at the ceiling, tired but too awake, trying to embrace emptiness. 

His phone pinged again. And then again. Desire for connection and belonging quickly faded beneath irritation and rage, both familiar and comforting sentiments, and Alexander sat up with renewed energy. He grabbed his phone just as it pinged a fourth time, and when he looked it was none other than Octavio Silva. But then the anger extinguished entirely, and in its place was that strange warmth again. 

Three erratic, drunk messages quickly explained Octavio having found a “fuckkken awwsome” bug. The fourth message was a picture confirming that the bug was, in fact, fucking awesome. 

Alexander smiled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *bangs fists on table* darksparks darKSPARKS DARKSPARKS DARKSP-


End file.
